Transmission of information by a transmitter to a receiver may occur over a noisy communications channel. Because of the noisy communications channel, the receiver may receive a distorted version of the information originally transmitted by the transmitter. An example of a noisy communications channel may be a hard disk, where the hard disk accepts information from a “transmitter” (i.e., writer), stores the information, and then provides a distorted version of that information to a “receiver” (i.e., reader) when the information is accessed. The distortion caused by the hard disk may be great enough to cause a channel error, such that the receiver can receive erroneous information bits (i.e., the receiver may interpret a bit in an output signal as a 1 when a corresponding bit in the input signal was a 0, or vice versa). Channel errors may reduce throughput, cause data to be read incorrectly, and/or cause other undesirable events.
Low-density parity check (LDPC) coding is one method of detecting and correcting channel errors. LDPC codes are error-correcting codes that can be used to communicate information more reliably over a noisy communications channel. LDPC codes may provide error correction capabilities and enable the transmission of data at higher rates (e.g., rates that approach a theoretical maximum transmission rate of the channel).